Prior to the weather turning warm, we had been keeping busy with indoor activities. N has shown a great interest in the Titanic lately, so we went to the library to get some books about it. Although it seems like a grown-up subject, there were considerably more books on it in the kids section than the adult section. Obviously it's not the most cheerful bedtime story, but N enjoys me reading them to him at bed time, and he will continue to read them after I put him to bed. The subject seems to have really brought out his artistic side, and he has drawn several very nice pictures of it.
Coinciding with N's newfound fascination with ships like the Titanic, he found some trucks with bass boats that I got out to sell on Ebay. Of course he wanted to play with them very badly, so we compromised by me agreeing to make him a boat. We started off with a simple dinghy, and quickly graduated to a Titanic and Pirate ship. Building them was a nice activity together, and reminded me of a long-since forgotten paper boat project I did when I was a kid.
Although I vowed in my last post that I was finished with Ebay projects for the season, I decided to make one last push to finish some of my long overdue projects, and while I was at it, clear out some more of my collection. It's sad that I've had some of the project trucks so long that the real ones are already on their second new body style since then, but that doesn't seem to be affecting their popularity too much. The part that has generated the most interest however is the tires I have been using. I've been flooded with "where did you get those?" questions on my Ebay account. Most were purchased around the same time as the trucks, in some cases ten years ago. Fortunately for me, my procrastination on these projects has resulted in products that no one else currently has. While most of the work on the trucks is fairly simple, and doesn't take much time individually, when you do 10 of them at once it adds up.
Thankfully, Ebay work hasn't quite consumed all of my shop time. I built some much needed storage for the boys toys in the garage. I also got the manifold for my Ten welded, and Junior disassembled and pressure washed. With the warm weather, I'm getting more antsy to finish working on the toys and get working on the real tractors.
Of course it's not all about shop projects. L continues to like to be the little helper. He did a very good job manning the hose while we washed my truck. N and I also had a good time at my nephew's birthday party. I continue to be amazed with how well N does on car trips. He read for about half the trip on the way down, and didn't once get out the video games. He also surprised me with how enamored he was with the cowboy hat he got at the party. He wore it the whole party and most of the way home. It was only has he was trying to get comfortable to take a nap that he took it off, and he put it right back on again after we got home.
